July 3, 2009 "A New Man"

New Drill Sargeant; Powder River Pass; Rocket Men; “A New Man”

Bob is the new Drill Sargeant since he wants to get to Rapid City as soon as possible so he can pick up his new bike and make any corrections that need to be made. Up at 6, free breakfast at the Comfort Inn of cereal, a banana, and orange juice, bags all loaded on the bike by 6:45 and I’m ready to go by 7. Sugar, Sandy and Griff head for the Toyota Corolla, a “midsize” car, and we’re off by 7:05 PM with 320 miles or so to go. The skies are leaden gray, a good sign, as it means that it is unlikely in those conditions to get the heating you need from the sun to fire up thunderstorms. And cool it was, in the high 50’s or low 60’s. I wore a short sleeve cotton shirt, dungarees, a Harley light lined jacket and my rain pants and coat over them, with fingerless gloves. The 24 miles to Ten Sleep passed quickly with nary a car on the road. Slowing to 30 mph, we passed Dirty Sally’s Shop, a couple log cabin motels, the gas station and almost immediately entered into a large canyon where signs told of the age of the rocks. Some were pre Cambrian, about 3 billion years old. I had seen the same signs coming the other way 3 days ago but had been unable to read them due to my quicker speed then going downhill. Now we climbed and climbed, from about 4500 feet, through the canyon and into the Big Horn Mountains.
It got colder and colder and I wished that I had a sweatshirt on and full gloves, but I did not want to stop. Knowing that Buffalo was about 70 miles after Ten Sleep, I kept looking at my trip meter to gauge how much longer we would have to endure this cold. Up and up we went into the snow fields where the temp was about 40 degrees, and at 50 mph, that’s a pretty cold wind chill. Finally we reached Powder River Pass at 9666 feet and started down the other side. We ran into a few rain showers going up and the same coming down, but as we descended, the temperature increased so that feeling returned to my red fingers and cold hands. Faster and faster I went down the mountain sides when the pavement was dry, but slowed when the pavement was wet. After what seemed to be a relatively short time, we were in Buffalo. The temp was 60 degrees. It had been 94 degrees on Tuesday when we came through. We gassed up, and I had a cup of coffee to warm my core. I also changed my gloves to full leather gloves. Sort of like shutting the barn door after the horses had run away. And what’s the story with the name of the Big Horn Mountains Campground? It isn’t located in the mountains at all, but in the plains outside Buffalo leading to the mountains. FTLOG.
It was only 9:30 and we had passed our biggest test of the day - getting through the 99 miles from Worland through a large canyon and over a mountain range in less than 2 1/2 hours in less than optimum conditions. Then we lit the candles and rocketed onto the interstate to Gillette, Wyodak, Rozet to Moorcroft where we gassed again. Another quick turnaround and we passed through the high plains into the small hills of Sundance and quickly into South Dakota to Spearfish, and before you know, we were exiting into Sturgis at about 12:30 for Bob’s last gas up in his Suzuki. 300 miles before lunch is a good start and now we only had 26 miles to go to Rapid City. We returned to Interstate 90 and soon found ourselves in a rainstorm for the last 15 miles or so into Rapid City. This was a heavy rain and unpleasant though my rain gear held up and I stayed try. The wet road made us more cautious and we slowed down to 65 mph for the last few miles. We exited at exit 57 and found our way to the Radisson. Bob unloaded his bike and Bill, Griff and I took the car to the H-D dealership while Bob road his bike out, still in the rain. Everyone was glad to see us - we’ve become quite a fixture there and many employees know us on a first name basis.
After several hours there getting Bob’s bike straightened out, we returned to the Radisson and went out to dinner at an Irish restaurant and pub across the street. We sat in a booth, as another hard rain storm hit town, and Sugar leaned in and asked Bob what it felt like to own a Harley, and he said, “Like a new man.” He had a grin on his face all afternoon and evening. Good for him. He bought a beautiful bike - red with white-walled tires. I’m sure he will make good use of it. The other memorable parts of our dinner were that they had no Irish beer other than Guinness and they had no Irish coffee (the “coffee machine was broken”), and all the waitresses were Amazons, very tall, big breasted women wearing low cut blouses. Our waitress was Mandy and she wasn’t very friendly, but as Billy said, “Who cares as long as she keeps coming over here?” Even he with all his charm couldn’t win her over. C’est la vie.
Happy 4th to everyone. I'll be getting up at 4:30 tomorrow to take Sandy and Sugar to the airport. It's been great having them share in this incredible adventure and see the beautiful sights we have seen this past 5 days. Good night. Dad, Nat, Gnat, DB, Matt Senton